Chapter 25

I stare out into the sky as I zone out from the chatter and watch an ender pearl hurtle towards me. The pearl lands to my left, teleporting Dream to my side, sword raised. He looks at me and I make eye contact, more or less, and tilt my head with a smirk. Dream turns away and runs past me to the group. Everyone yells in fright as he plunges his sword towards Quackity. He's targeting him because, apart from me with no armour, Quackity has the least armour. Quackity dives away as Eret shields him from any other attacks. Dream had thrown another ender pearl by now to escape; he was just doing little hits. Likely just scare tactics to put us on edge. I walk over to the group, who now had Dream surrounded.

"Be careful of the mole." He snickers before disappearing in a purple mist. Everyone looks around suspiciously, but I just grinned at the spot the tall man had just stood.

"Mole? Like a traitor?" Tommy asks, looking at me. I look up and smile softly at him.

"I suppose so." I say, still smiling eerily.

"Well, it's not Tubbo," Tommy says looking around. "Or me, or Niki or Eret-"

"Why not Eret?" Techno scoffs, "Just because he's decided to play the 'nice guy', he's incapable of betraying you again."

"Oh, I trust Eret." I say, shrugging my shoulders. Everyone looks at me strangely.

"I've lost a lot to be here." Eret says calmly. "Dream threatened to take away my kingship and I decided to fight for my friends instead of rule."

"You're not king anymore?" Tubbo asks shyly, tilting his head in confusion. The tall man shakes his head and I notice the lack of crown. The group stands in silence then Quackity pipes up,

"Well, what are we going to do now? We can't keep sitting here waiting, I'll fucking die!"

I look around and notice that everyone is looking at me. I look back in the direction Dream had come from and notice Punz and Dream standing on hill, then shrug.

"We better get back to Pogtopia while we wait for the others," Tommy says after my silence. We begin to march back into the forest, towards Pogtopia. The walk is short and weirdly quiet, the lack of talking would make someone else uncomfortable. Not me though, my thoughts and excitement are well enough company.

In Pogtopia everyone piles into the small entrance room. The seven people in our group are too many so we make our way into the actual ravine. Many people had not been in Pogtopia before so gasps and 'wow's ensued.

"I can't believe he attacked me!" Quackity mutters, still fuming over Dream's attack and his inability to protect and defend himself. "Why me? Damn it…"

He wandered out of earshot and I chuckle to myself, then jump at a scarred hand on my elbow. I looked down at the short women standing next to me, rubbing my arm tenderly.

"Niki," I sigh, continuing to walk down the stairs. "You scared me."

"Sorry Will," She murmurs, removing her hand. "Just checking if you were alright."

"Yeah I-" I start when a squeaking noise interrupts me. I look around, surprised, then spot a little fox tied to the wall not far away. When had it got there?

"What was that?" Niki asked, eyes scanning the ravine. I noticed a sign above the fox that read 'To Niki, his name is Mushroom. From Ant.' Ant, short for Antfrost, was one of our allies that we were waiting for. He must have left this at some point for Niki, because of her love for foxes and pets in general.

I speed walk over to the fox and take the sign down, waving Niki over.

"It's Mushroom, this fox I got you." I grinned at the woman and her eyes sparkled as she ran over. Some people had walked over to inspect the fox and I grin wider.

"Aww, they're gorgeous!" She scooped up the fox, unhooking its lead. Then her beaming face turned to one of great sorrow. A few teardrops escaped her round eyes, rolling down her cheeks into the fox's soft fur.

"Niki? What's wrong?" I ask worriedly.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just remembering an old friend." She sniffs, smiling bittersweetly. Of course! Fungie, her last fox had been slaughtered by Sapnap in a 'Pet War' of sorts. I'm so stupid, how could I forget?

"I'm so sorry Niki, I can't do anything right."

"Guys!" Tommy called from the other side of the ravine. Everyone who had watched what just happened, as well as me and Niki, walked over to Tommy, Techno and Quackity. "Techno says he has something to share."

"Yeah," Techno nods, fixing his fluffy red cape. "Quackity's been targeted for having bad armour, that's obvious. But I have been doing some… collecting, so that will no longer be a problem."

He beckons us all and we follow him into a room that Techno had claimed as his. A made bed lay in the corner, surrounded by chests. Everyone started to rummage through the chests until Techno stammers,

"Guys- guys! That's just my normal stuff."

Everyone turns to look at him as he reaches into a crevasse next to him. He pulls a hidden lever, and a doorway opens up to reveal a black stone room. I glance at Tommy, brows knitted.

"This! This is my bunker!"

Everyone piled in and gasped in wonder.

"HOLY SHIT!"

"No way!"

"WHAT!?"

Lining one wall was five sets of enchanted armour, nearly as strong as Techno's own. Lining the other walls are chests upon chests of swords, potions, bows and arrows and jewels galore. Everyone chatters excitedly, grabbing whatever they need.

"I AM READY FOR REVOLUTION, BOYS!" Techno booms and I shiver. At first, when Techno had said he had been 'collecting' and I saw a black stone room I had looked at Tommy because it had been very reminiscent of another war, just like this one. But Techno had come through and provided. He is ready for war and chaos.

"Let's get rid of this government." I grin at Techno and from under his boar skull he grins right back.

~~~~~

We had left Pogtopia with more confidence and gear than we had before. We met up with Skeppy, the diamond man, Bad, the polite demon and Ant the cat man, and were now on our way to Manburg.

"Look at how cool we look!" Tommy yells from the front of the pack, walking backwards to look at everyone. I smile at the naïve boy and stop walking. People stride past me, including Fundy who hadn't talked to me since he had come over to our side. I look at everyone from the back of the group, sighing at the positivity. They have no idea what they're going into.

As we walk past the tower where Schlatt had once rained arrows down on me and Tommy, a new arrow flies into the group.

"Up there!" Someone calls, pointing, and everyone looks up. The enemy looks down on us, firing sporadically. "Let's get them!"

People react differently, some take out bows and crossbows and fire up and try and hit people. Techno uses his 'rocket launcher', the one he used to execute Tubbo and blue, white, and red colours explode up the tower. Some people run into the tower to climb the ladder inside, to face the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. I go up the ladder as well, helping Tubbo up; he's healed well but is still weak.

I hear Techno grunt loudly in frustration then spill some water from a flask on his trident he had strapped to his back. Now that the trident was wet, he could practically fly, landing was still hard though, apparently. As he flew up, I cheered for him, my brother was much cooler than me, I had to admit.

Tubbo and I get up the ladder and find only our allies. Techno looks out and points as Tommy yells,

"They've pearled! Over there!"

Unlike in the last war, everyone has bows that shimmer and give off purple light. I along with everyone else shoot arrows, hoping they will land. I cheer, then immediately shut my mouth when my arrow flies straight towards Punz, only to bounce off an invisible shield a good metre before it could hit him. I didn't even know that was a thing.

"They're too far!" Fundy calls and I look around on the floor. Techno's already on the floor, having pearled down and is in hot pursuit of Karl Jacobs, who is running for his life. Karl's rectangular black shield with a red 'x' painted on, the symbol of Manburg, lay abandoned on the floor.

"Give chase!"

Everyone gets down one way or another and the hunt begins. Tubbo pearls further than me and I'm left alone. As I kick Karl's shield in disgust fear strikes my heart when Dream suddenly tugs on my coat out of nowhere.

"Will," He mutters, "We need to talk."

~~~~~

I stand with Dream and look at my people with their weapons pointed at Dream's men. To be fair they are heavily outnumbered.

"Can you tell them to lower their weapons." Dream says through gritted teeth, looking at me out the side of his mask. I nod and tell my revolutionists to calm down, that Dream and I had come to a momentary truce.

"Look," Dream says, turning to me. "Schlatt's an idiot."

"Oh, I know." I breath out a laugh, "So, you finally figured it out, huh?"

He chuckles dryly,

"We want to surrender." I frown at him; nothing had even happened yet. "Come with me."

I motion for everyone to follow us and we walk over to the old van. It had been a very long time since I had seen, let alone been in the van. It was destroyed, holes in the windows, tyres gone and metal heavily dented. I enter after Dream and as many people as we could fit follow, some climbing to the roof to look down through a huge hole in the metal and some looking in through the windows.

The first thing that I, along with everyone else, notice is the heaped, drunken mess on the floor.

"Schlatt?" I ask, leaning down to him. Fundy echoes me, coming closer.

"Wilbur?' Schlatt slurs, "FUNDY!?"

He breaks the bottle on the floor, the last bit of alcohol sloshing onto the ground, leaving a sharp makeshift knife.

"Come here!" Schlatt roars, pushing himself up the side of the bench and wobbling towards Fundy. "Who am I going to rule with, huh? YOUR RUINED EVERYTHING! I thought you were something."

"I am something." Fundy says defiantly, dodging Schlatt's pitiful attacks. "YOU HAD A PLAN and I followed it, but you brought it downhill!"

"No…" Schlatt slurs, "No you're not a man, you're no one." I growl at his comments on my son,

"Are you ready to die?" I bark and Schlatt spins to me.

"WHAT?"

"We're going to kill you!" I yell over his shouts, sidestepping his attacks. He's randomly stabbing at anyone who got near so Techno slaps the bottle out of his hand. "Tommy, I want you to shoot him with Dream's crossbow."

Tommy nods solemnly and loads the crossbow, pointing it at Schlatt who had slouched against the cupboard again.

"VICTORY OR DEATH." I cry, staring at Eret, realising everything comes back full circle. "Remember that Eret?"

"Vividly." Eret states, looking back at me from behind the sunglasses.

"If I go down," Schlatt warns, looking everyone in the eyes. "This country goes with me!"

"Shut up." Tommy grunts, holding the crossbow unwaveringly to his forehead.

"Oh Tommy Innit," Schlatt mocked, "You know nothing."

"I know enough."

Schlatt chuckles darkly then looks around once more and his eyes land on Quackity.

"Quackity?" Schlatt says surprisingly softly, panting slightly. "You left me, everyone left me."

"Any last words?" Tommy asks coldly. Schlatt looks down and surprise engulfs his person. His knees buckle and his eyes bulge. He clutches his chest, gasping for air, looking around in panic. I stumble back, as he stares bug-eyed at me then falls to the ground, eyes empty and mouth hanging open. Stunned silence fills the room.

"Did he just have a heart attack!?" Tubbo cries from the back of the van and everyone starts to talk at once. I try to break the staring contest I'm having with the dead man, but I can't look away.

"We won." Someone says and the van erupts into disrespectful celebratory cheers.

"We killed an old man with heart problems!" I hear Techno whoop, but I only share part of their joy. His glassy eyes still stare through my soul.

~~~~~

"I think you should go give a speech as our new president!" I say to Tommy and he looks up at me surprised.

"Oh, I-" Tommy stutters but still goes up to the stand where Schlatt once ruled from and started to speak.

"I- uh, have been told that I'm president and I'm honoured, really. But I can't be your president, I have unfinished business. I'll be needing those discs back, Dream. So, I ask that our president, who deserves to be up here, Wilbur Soot, to come up to the stage."

I jump at my name being called. I had not been listening but had been concentrating on Techno's huffs and suspicious looks back at Dream. I slowly gather that I had been called up for the same reason that Tommy was up there, to give a president's speech and swap places with him. I look out at the crowd of people, more than there were chairs and think.

Dream and his gang had taken their places up the back, along with Skeppy, Bad and Ant. Although the two groups were not together, they were united in being against L'Manburg. I smile slightly,

"Well, welcome back to L'Manburg, yes L'Manburg. I, uh, wasn't supposed to be up here but while I'm here as president my first decree is to change that awful flag," I see Fundy look down in shame, "It's not meant to be black and red; it's supposed to be red, white, blue, black and gold."

I hear cheering coming from the audience and I beam.

"Now, I've been listening to Techno go on about how government is bad, blah blah, blah, and I agree. Or at least, I'm not fit to be your president. But there is one man who is."

I look around then spot the kind brunette in the crowd.

"Tubbo, may you come up to the stage?"